Too much water is deadly?

I really need to ask this question because no one has been able to answer it definitively for me. I’ve asked friends, googled the question and asked countless pharmacies and each person I ask gives me a different answer. I’m talking about water and how much we are supposed to drink in a day. Some pharmacists told me two litres a day and another 8 cups, which is apparently 1.5 litres a day.

I was always told to believe that one should only drink water if one feels thirsty or when one’s throat feels dry. But which one is it?

I ask because there was an article in a newspaper that said that drinking too much water is deadly. It didn’t say, could be deadly or might be deadly or may be deadly, it specifically said ‘is deadly’. The article was about a man who went into hospital for a procedure and the medical staff told him to drink as much water as possible.

They told him to drink 8 glasses every hour to keep himself hydrated. He died within hours of following their instructions. Clearly the staff made a huge mistake telling the patient to drink 8 glasses an hour. The cells in his body, including his brain, swelled up and burst. Sort of like water poisoning.

The thing that always confounds me is when people say drink eight cups of water, or eight glasses of water. Since not all cups, or glasses, are the same size, how big or small must the cup, or glass, be to count as 8 cups, or glasses? And it’s worrying if there is a discrepancy in the amount of water that should be drunk. Is it 8 big cups or 8 small cups? Is it 1 litre or 1.5 litres? Because that makes a huge difference to your body.

Also, don’t forget that many of the fruits and vegetables you eat already have water in them. How much, you’d have to look online, but they contribute to your water intake. So too does where you live and what you do for a living. If your job involves a lot of physical activity, you’re likely to feel more thirsty.

In hot climates, you are also likely to consume more water because you’ll be sweating more whereas in colder climates you are likely not to feel thirsty at all.

I don’t recall drinking that much water when I lived in the UK. When I was there up until the mid-90s, no one was ever seen carrying water bottles around because they didn’t feel thirsty and they weren’t getting sick because they weren’t drinking enough.

Of course they carry it around now but I guarantee it’s not out of need but out of some kind of fad or something they’ve read on the internet. They forget that they’re drinking tea and coffee all day, which is water, and most likely consuming alcohol or soft drinks with their meals, which are also water. Of course, it’s different in the UAE, and the Middle East in general, because out here it can get very hot in the summer, even in the winter it’s advisable to carry water with you, regardless of whether or not you are active. The other thing I often wonder about is electrolytes. I was recently told, because of a heart condition, that I should consume enough water and to make sure I have enough electrolytes in my body.

Again, how much is too much or too little? Surely where electrolytes are concerned, we should first check what minerals are deficient in our bodies, because consuming too much can also be dangerous. That’s why I’m totally against these energy drinks that are laden with electrolytes, which people buy because they feel like drinking something other than water. They don’t realise that they might be overloading their bodies with electrolytes especially when they’ve probably not lost any. If you have repeated diarrhoea in the day or have been vomiting all day, the chances are you’re losing electrolytes so by all means replenish them but don’t consume energy drinks just because they might taste nice. The bottom line is, don’t overdrink anything. Not even water.